We affirm the power of personal narratives to teach culture and provide reading and listening practice. Intrinsically more motivating than traditional texts, these stories promote connection with real people. Students do not learn about fictional characters; instead they encounter real native speakers, each with their own idiosyncrasies and personal opinions. Students thus learn content and language in a more ethnographic or anthropological way, with engaging texts as primary sources and not simplified summaries.

We are committed to being a locus between research and praxis. This means staying attentive to recent findings in second language acquisition, and then applying that research to create tasks that are both meaningful and reflective of best practices. We reject the idea that student work is merely practice of grammatical structures—we instead demand that each online activity or in-class task be engaging: intercultural, interpersonal or puzzle/game-like. We also strive to make language and culture learning as fast and efficient as possible, and this implies focusing on content and the “real-world” as well.

Personal transformation takes time. Thus it is crucial that students continue with their language study, and pursue opportunities to connect directly with native speakers, ideally through internships and study-abroad. Our in-class tasks and online activities promote personal relationships among students in your class and constantly encourages both study abroad and immediate connections with people from the target cultures. One or two semesters of study are not enough—a primary goal of any beginning or intermediate language course must be student retention so they continue to build proficiency in their new language, while continuing to be transformed into interculturally-sophisticated communicators.